


Always A Lord Of Narnia

by Britpacker



Series: A Lord Of Narnia [2]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Pre Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 13:13:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17224709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Britpacker/pseuds/Britpacker
Summary: Two years after his return to Narnia from a decade's exile, the Lord Drinian accompanies his king on a visit to the most important place in the kingdom - drydock.





	Always A Lord Of Narnia

The sun had burned off the last of the morning’s mist by the time the two richly-dressed horsemen crested the last rise before the tiny coastal hamlet of Lionmead. Despite the early hour the small settlement hummed with activity, most of it centred around a great timber and canvas beast squatting awkwardly a few yards clear of the waves that gently lapped at silvery sand. Faint clanging sounds carried on a breeze that tasted tart with salt and boiling tar, and all around the huge structure small figures could be seen scurrying, as busy as ants. The smaller of the two onlookers whistled.

“At last I can believe our quest close to being upon us, my Lord High Admiral,” he drawled, slanting a mischievous smile to his companion.

“She’s all but fit for sea a month before Mortain promised, Sire.” Just the sight of her, mast soaring to pierce the intricate lattice of freshly-tarred rigging, made his skin prickle with proud anticipation. Other nations might – perhaps – possess vessels larger than Narnia’s new royal galleon but none, the Lord Drinian was sure, could boast a lady finer.

“Aye.” King Caspian the Tenth eyed the finely carved prow, its dragon head painted dark green and gilded to depict the living beast’s scales since his last visit, with a touch of highly satisfactory awe. “And have we yet a crew to sail her, when yourself and Mortain are content to let water seep into her current haven?”

“We’ve volunteers enough for a whole fleet of such vessels, Caspian!” The enthusiasm of Narnia’s response to her master’s call had startled him. Even after two full years’ residence, it sometimes seemed to Drinian that his own kind were stranger than any of the Talking Beasts, Dwarves and Fauns who filled the dazzling halls of Cair Paravel. “I only wish more than a dozen had sailed more than a toy boat on a village pond before!”

“You were the first to remind me we have a nation of _damnable lubbers_ to contend with, my Lord.” Caspian spurred Destrier down the grassy slope almost fast enough to escape the sound of his friend’s mocking laughter. “Still, this _Rhince_ you’ve appointed your deputy seems a stout-hearted fellow. A servant of my uncle’s wretched fleet, you said?”

“A prisoner forced aboard the leaking tub _Prumaprismia_ in punishment,” Drinian explained, reining Tempest in alongside the King as turf gave way to the cobbled stone of the new harbour road. “Half-trained at best by the lollygagging laggards that pretended to command Miraz’s _fleet_ of course, but as natural a seaman as I’ve ever met; and any man freed from _that_ who chooses to return must be as much a slave to the sea as I am! Ah, Mortain! Forgive that we intrude so early…”

“Always welcome whatever the hour, m’Lord – Your Majesty.” Nut-brown and as wrinkled as if he had spent half his life at the bottom of the Great Eastern Ocean, Narnia’s master shipwright tugged a silvery forelock, the reverence directed, Caspian guessed, more to his Admiral than his King. “The lady’ll soon be set for sea, and there’s not a man or dwarf that works on her don’t yearn to sail with ye wherever ye’ll choose to take her!”

“They make themselves invaluable here, Mortain.” Swinging down from the saddle with a wink to the Black Dwarf that dashed for Tempest’s bridle, Drinian headed his small party at a trot toward a single ladder that scaled the galleon’s high side. “Begging Your Majesty’s pardon,” he added with a grin as Caspian tried and failed to match his determined pace. “Two years is a long time to be landlocked – beyond my monthly cruises to Galma of course, but they’re so short they hardly count! If standing at the wheel ashore is the most I can have of this lady, for the time I’ll welcome it.”

Caspian cackled as he followed his friend up the precarious ladder, its base secured by great boulders dug into the sand. “Time enough to regain your sea-legs when we’re launched, my Lord,” he said kindly, shading his eyes to stare along the harbour wall where half a dozen small, squat brigantines stood: the beginnings, so his council hoped, of a great Narnian trading fleet. “What major tasks remain, Mortain, before you flood the berth?”

“The rigging’s run up and the sail’s fit to go aloft, Sire. Her deck planking could stand another caulking, but the keel’s fully tarred. Once the paint’s dry in my Lord Admiral’s cabin...”

“And a crew collected that knows a long splice from a long string o’ baccy,” the Lord Admiral added under his breath. Caspian’s lips twitched, but he refused to dignify the grumble with an answer.

“The lady will be set fair for launching.” Accustomed by now to the easy exchanges between his guests, Mortain ignored them. A sly grin twisted thin lips as his gaze slid innocently from one to the other. “Saving, o’ course, that we’ve no name to launch her by. The carpenters are getting a mite impatient to be at the sternplate, Sire.”

“Ah, yes, a name.” Sidestepping the sweating craftsmen still scrubbing, shaving and sanding the maindeck bulwarks, Caspian ambled toward the high forecastle, his gaze already fixed on the eastern horizon. _Our destination_ , Drinian reminded himself, restraining a shiver with a physical effort. _Whatever it might be!_ “Yes, I _had_ given some thought to the matter myself.”

“If you have a favoured choice, my liege…” Mortain, seeing his presence no longer required, dipped his head and backed away as Caspian turned a glowing visage to his oldest friend.

“I should call her the _Dawn Treader_ , Drinian: what say you to that? Could there be aught more fitting for a galleon that will set her toe – oh very well, her _keel_ if you must have it so! – on the very rim of the world, where the morning sun herself first rises? Yes, ‘tis perfect – she must be the _Dawn Treader_!”

“And only a prince would conceive of so pointlessly poetical a name!”

“Oh?” Quite unoffended by a bellow that turned half the heads in the village, Caspian flopped onto the low bench already set at the point of the bows for the sole member of the ship’s eventual company that might have leisure to loll during their impending voyage. “Then the name given by the Four Sovereigns to their great ship…”

“ _Splendour Hyaline_?” Drinian pursed his full lips and folded his hands in the manner of a disappointed schoolmaster. “A sailor would have no truck with such nonsense, Sire! _Great Lion; Royal Narnia; Queen-Whatever-Her-Name-Will-Be-When-The-Council-Finally-Convinces-You-To-Wed_ … where’s the fault in the old way o’ naming a ship?”

“By the time yourself and Mortain are done, my friend, I doubt not Narnia will have a whole fleet with just the names you suggest,” Caspian promised tolerantly. “But surely a king’s galleon, destined for the greatest of all adventures, deserves a more distinguished title!”

“As Your Majesty pleases.” Though he rolled his eyes, Drinian was secretly not displeased by the sentimental flight of fancy. “I’ll instruct Mortain to set the carpenters about their business before we leave.”

“Did you ever believe we should reach this point, Drinian?” Caspian rose from his perch, turning his gaze from the far horizon to the verdant green slopes of his tranquil kingdom. “When we first discussed my pledge before Aslan…”

“And I declared you better fitted for a lunatic’s jacket than a sovereign’s crown, if memory serves me right.”

“It does,” the King confirmed with a light laugh. “And others had made the point – if less colourfully.”

“No doubt,” Drinian agreed lazily. “Why, Trumpkin would still sooner have Your Highness confined to the basements of Cair Paravel than allowed away on _this madcap addle-pated paddle off to Aslan-alone-knows what horrible end…_ ” The quotation made both men laugh even harder. “Truly, Caspian: can my phrasing _really_ be more descriptive than his?”

“I know: and yes, it can. The Dwarf at least restrains himself from calling his master a madman!”

“Even when that master concedes his plans were impractical and ill thought-out?” Drinian’s dark eyes danced. Caspian threw up both hands.

“Oh, very _well!_ ” he cried. “My original notions were far-fetched and romantic, overlooking both the urgent need of the realm for the stretch of a few months’ peace and the utter want of anything resembling a ship or a crew... Yet look how far we’re come, Drinian! No more Old and New Narnians eyeing each other with doubt – just true Narnians, striving together for the good of the realm. Our borders stand secure; the harvests have been plentiful; and trade thrives, advanced by my Lord of Etinsmere and his frequent voyages to Barwell or Galma! The miseries of Miraz’s reign might never have happened at all.”

“Had they not, would we be where we stand today?” Drinian wondered, turning his eyes one more from the peaceful land to the wild, unknown horizon. “And no great quest into uncharted seas would be required.”

Some (especially amongst those awaiting in the Council Chamber at Cair Paravel) might see that as a positive advantage. Drinian, too easily bored by the landowner’s life, could hardly have disagreed more fervently. “The Beasts and the Dryads, Dwarves and Fauns would still be cowering in the forests from the sound of a Telmarine voice, I daresay. And what was it Queen Lucy said to you, before she was returned to her own place?”

“ _Everything happens for a reason_ ,” Caspian recited, his merriment fading. For a moment the self-assured young sovereign Drinian knew disappeared, subsumed by the hopeful, self-doubting prince he had encountered his first day home from a decade’s exile. “But the usurpation… all the deaths…”

“Perhaps.” To dwell on the unchangeable past was dangerous, something Drinian had learned a long time ago. “Now, does Your Majesty intend to clutter the fo’c’sle all day, or may the shipwrights continue their business? The _Katharina_ is almost loaded, ready to depart for Galamaia at first light with three more volunteers for your galleon’s service to be tried among her company: and we’ve still to meet with the Great Council to confirm the terms of Trumpkin’s regency…”

“Aye.” Caspian pulled a most unkingly face at the reminder. “The entire nobility of the realm coming together to protest the dangerous futility of our endeavour! You need not fear I’ll overstep my passenger’s authority aboard your ship, my Lord Captain. I intend to be as placid as a Bulgy Bear in wintertime, so glad shall I be to be unburdened of my duties until we return to Cair Paravel!”

“Do otherwise and you’ll spend the whole voyage swimming in the bilges,” Drinian threatened lightly, ushering the slighter man from the ship before him with a wave to the loitering master shipwright. “And in answer to your question Sire – never in thirty years, much less under three! Queen Lucy was right, I daresay – there’s a reason for all that happens! How could Narnia have come together so calmly after a thousand years’ division otherwise?”

“A good line: I must remember it for the Great Council,” Caspian growled, clapping his friend on the back once Drinian had given him a hand into Destrier’s saddle. “You have names for these volunteers?”

“If not yet faces.” His merchant brig Katharina, the first fruit of Mortain’s labours, bobbed at the quayside, her loading supervised by her recently-appointed Mate. “One of them is an Etinsmere man – Rynelf – that was carried with the press-gang aboard that raddled wreck _Prunaprismia_ along with Rhince. _Treasonable utterances_ , apparently, but he came to love the sea and he’s eager to serve.”

“Rhince vouches for him?” Caspian could imagine only too well what his uncle’s regime might have held seditious. Drinian nodded. 

“Aye: would have brought him forward sooner, but he knew our need to cast a wider net. Look at them, Caspian! Almost every province has its brigantine now, and the keels are laid for three more. With the scent o’ profit in their nostrils and the promise of adventure for their sons…”

“As you said from the very beginning: our guilds and tradesmen lose their timorousness at the sight of good Galmian coin,” the King observed, his hand still heavy on the sailor’s broad shoulder. “And Etinsmere has benefitted richly by being the foundation of this new trade! Why! Lund Beaversdam declared last week, he wishes his province stood closer to the sea! He’s to sponsor a vessel now, I hear?”

“To be named _The Brothers_ in his father and uncle’s honour. Oh, I’ve given the Fleet’s approval Caspian, how could I not? The more ships we have, the more seamen to sail ‘em; and the stronger our defences will be should we ever have need. I’ll make Narnia queen of the sea yet!”

“I never doubted it.” Strong fingers bit into his shoulder for a moment before Caspian wheeled his mount away, bound for the castle and the meeting of the Grand Council of the Realm they dared delay no longer. “I only wish I could sail with you tomorrow. Galamaia sounds so very _exotic!_ You’ll go aboard to see these potential recruits now, I suppose?”

“I’ll be back at the castle by dinner.” The prospect of even a three days’ voyage excited him, Drinian conceded. How great the thrill of their eventual quest aboard the most gracious of galleons would be, he dared not – yet – imagine. “And we’ll quiet the lily-livered landlubbers that fill your halls yet! Between us we’ve survived the usurpation; the Wars of Deliverance; and the Pirate War. A year or more’s voyage into uncharted oceans is no more terrifying than a morning ride in the woods by comparison!”

“Thank you, Drinian. Now I have answer for our liverish countrymen and their well-meaning protests!” With a flick of the rein Caspian had his mount clattering along the harbour wall, one hand raised in response to the cheers his presence stirred on the decks of the bobbing brigantine squadron. Chuckling softly to himself Drinian set off on foot in the same direction, feeling his smile widen with every step he took closer to the gleaming little vessel that bore his sister’s name.

“Mornin’, Cap’n.” Yes, Rhince had learned quickly, overlooking his commander’s great landward title the moment a foot struck the gangplank. “We’re loaded an’ ready for the tide, Sir,” the big man added, giving a tug to the pointed end of his bushy dark beard. “And the three new fellers is ready to make account o’ themselves: Rynelf, me old shipmate from Etinsmere; Hofian – a Glasswater man, sailed a couple o’ times aboard the _Lord Belisar_ by now; and Ugrian, the blacksmith o’ Beruna, done a single cruise wi’ Captain Sarian aboard the Passarid brig _Lioness_. You’ll be wantin’ to see each man in the cabin, Sir?”

“Please, Rhince.” The brig sat low in the water, her hold fully stocked with Etinsmere produce: velvet bound for Messires Raimon and Jostain, fine cloth merchants of Galamaia; fresh vegetables; pears, apples and strong cider; woollens, fine pottery and wooden goods. The merchants of his territories had responded readily to their lord’s appeal, and been rewarded richly for it, and now with every voyage more men came forward, eager to risk the sea and share the revenues it brought. “I’m required at the castle this evening. Have her ready for the spring tide and I’ll be sure to be with you before breakfast.”

“Aye, Cap’n.” As the man he already knew would stand at his side aboard Caspian’s fancifully-named galleon bustled off to his business Drinian entered his spartan cabin, ready to encounter the next three hapless lubbers that dared hope to sail with them.

“Rynelf,” he murmured, scanning the roughly-scribbled sheet of notes left ready on his desk regarding all three men. “Called Sopespian _a timorous mouse not fit to guard the dirt from the Lord Tirian’s boot_ , did he? Yes, I can see this one has promise already!”

Everything, so the ancient Queen of Narnia had told Caspian, happened for a reason. Turning his chair to the sternport for a view of the expanding trade fleet and the dockyard still growing beyond, Drinian found he could easily believe it.

“Without Prince Miraz’s jealousy, there’d be no eastern quest in search o’ seven lost lords,” he murmured, counting off the reasons for the last ten years’ traumas on his long, weather-browned fingers. “No war of deliverance to unite the men of Narnia with their neighbours; and no _Dawn Treader_ in urgent need of a crew! Like it or not, the happenings we’ve lived have made Caspian and Narnia – and I – what we were meant to be! Yes, come in, Master Rynelf and tell me: what persuades the unwilling servant of a usurper’s fleet to volunteer for service with the rightful King’s?”


End file.
